14/11/2016

Day 5: NPCs #IntPiPoMo

Wondering what the hashtag in the title is all about? Click here.
Want to know all the themes that I have used and will be using for my
10 Days of SWTOR Screenshots? You can find the full list here.

Paring down the number of screenshots for this one was extremely hard because a) SWTOR features a lot of interesting non-player characters, and b) I've taken even more screenshots of them in the past year. In the end I just accepted that this would be a big one with lots of pictures.

Okay, this is neither a great screenshot nor are these great characters, but I just felt like including it anyway as a reminder of just how creepy the few child characters in SWTOR are. Rav made a whole post about this once. Why does a boy who's apparently meant to be about eight have half his head shaved (not to mention that the rest of the haircut is terrible)? Why does a girl of presumably the same age have an adult figure and boobs? Yikes.

I really like the subtle ways in which the original class stories are intertwined with the world story arcs, meaning that while they work perfectly fine as self-contained tales there are plenty of "Easter Eggs" to be found for those in the know. For example Doctor Ianna Cel here, whom you encounter on Imperial Taris as an Imperial agent, is a quest giver for all Republic players on Republic Taris.

For me it's quite rare that I meet an NPC that makes me go "huh, this guy/girl is quite good-looking" but this Sith Pureblood was a rare exception. His name is Lord Torius and he features in the trooper class story on Voss.

Another interesting connection between class and world stories is the fact that while "The Three", the rulers of Voss, are mentioned pretty much all over the place, the Imperial agent is the only one who actually gets to meet them in person during their class story... and in the process finds out just why the Voss have been so stubbornly neutral for a long time.

Captain Hanthor on Makeb is an NPC that I found quite memorable, what with being the first Cathar we see in the service of the Empire. He serves to illustrate the somewhat increasing Imperial tolerance for aliens after the whole Malgus debacle. I also think it's quite clever that while he's only a very minor character in the main story, you have the option to talk to him and get a bit more background in at least one of the side missions.

I just love this screenshot of Revan and every time I look at it I feel the urge to turn it into a meme saying "Sad Revan is sad".

That sad face totally runs in the family by the way.

I'm really proud of this shot of Master Surro because it took me several playthroughs of Ziost to actually capture this split-second frame of her Force-pushing someone away (I think it was Lana). Master Surro in general is quite a striking and memorable character, but if you think about it properly, we actually know virtually nothing about her as she spends 99% of the Ziost story being possessed by the Emperor.

I really loved the looks of these two Jedi you meet in the People's Tower on Ziost. I think I may have subconsciously modelled my Guardian Starberry after the Mirialan here because I just love the contrast of the sassy pink hair against the green skin.

This screenshot may superficially appear to be centred on everyone's favourite cranky engineer Tora, but the real reason I saved it was that it made me notice the diversity of Vik's stable of thugs! First we have that lady to the left who appears to be a Bothan, making her the... what, third one in the entire game? And to the right of Tora there's that walrus guy... I don't know what they are called, but I know they exist in KOTOR as well and I had never seen one in SWTOR until then.

While I think that Vaylin's character in KotFE is quite underdeveloped for someone with this much screen time, she seriously has the best facial expressions.

The walrus species is known as Aqualish. They first appeared in SWtOR (alongside the ever-creepy female Nik'to, the Snivvian, and the Ishi Tib species) in the Nightlife Event. I want to say that a Snivvian is also a part of Vik's gang, but neither the female Nik'to nor the Ishi Tib have appeared in cutscenes since their first appearance. They're probably around on Rishi somewhere.

I do love seeing more species diversity across the game in general. Shame that so very few of them are actual enemies (the only enemy Bothans are currently on the second island on Rishi, for example), though. Fighting the umpteenth Gran, Duros, or Rodian gets boring after a while (not to mention humans!).

I'm pretty sure that the kid figures in SWTOR are simply shrunken adult figures, done to save time. That said, the boy in that pic isn't something that's out of place in my neck of the world. (Yes, hairdo and all.)

Yeah, the girl... that's just wrong.

I can't tell you how happy I was to see that Cell'd survived in the Agent's story.

Oh, don't worry. I don't think that was being very mean. Given that most of them play sports to the Nth degree (as in playing select and club sports, even at such a young age) and that in my day they used to pick on the non-sports players, I don't exactly feel bad about you teasing that look.

Search this blog

Subscribe

Referral Link

Thinking about trying SWTOR for the first time or coming back after some time away? If you use this referral link of mine, you'll get some free goodies! If you end up (re)subscribing, I'll get something too, but if you don't... well, no harm done!

Here's a page with general information about the referral program on the official website, and here's their FAQ if you want to know more. (Note in the small print that referrals can only be processed if you opt-in for promotional e-mails on sign-up.)